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The Nature of God .Howard Taylor. THE NATURE OF GOD
11. Q. You have spoken of God the 'Father', also the 'Son' and the 'Spirit of God'. Is there one God or are there three? A. There is one God. Yet we must remember that God is love. He was love even before he created the universe. One who is alone cannot love. In the one God there is love, and so in the one God there is a communion of persons. In our three dimensions of space and one of time, we cannot imagine one being three and three being one. In the same way a number of squares on the flat is not usually one square but in a higher dimension they might be one cube - something a creature being confined to two dimensions could not contemplate. God dwells in a higher dimension than we can imagine. His ways are higher than our ways. 12. Q. What kind of love is there in God? A. It is like the love that there should be between father and son. The relationship is not a dictatorship but a family. That is why we say that there is God the Father and God the Son. Before time was created the Son came forth from the Father. There was never a time when the Son did not exist. He had his eternal being in God. Many Muslims think that the Christian term 'Son of God' means that Christians believe that God married in order to have a son. This, of course, is a misunderstanding, and Christians do not believe this. 13.Q. What is the power of the love between God the Father and God the Son? A. The power of the love is the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son. The Holy Spirit bears witness not to himself but to the Father and the Son. The Father gives all things to the Son and the Son obeys the Father in all things even as far as death on the cross Thus we see the self-giving love of God which is his very being. This is what we mean when we say the one God is Trinity - Three in One and One in Three. 14. Q. Is the word Trinity found in the Bible? A. No. Nevertheless, as we study the life of Jesus on earth, we often sec wonderful glimpses of the communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Bible points us to the God who is Three in One and One in Three. As human beings we must never expect to understand fully the lord of heaven and earth. In the same way a little child does not know everything about his father. But the child still knows and loves him. 15. Q. Does God love us? A. Yes, he loves us with a very great holy love. 16. Q. How do we know that he loves us like that? A. We know he loves us with a holy love because he judges righteously and also forgives us our sin, and this he does at great cost to himself. 17. Q. Where do we begin to see his righteous judgement and forgiveness? A. We see it in the history of the people of Israel whom God called to be with him to represent all peoples of the world. They obeyed and disobeyed God many times. When we read the Old Testament we read of God's righteous judgement upon Israel and his wonderful forgiveness to them. In fact we see in Israel many parts of God's holy love. We see his faithfulness, truthfulness, kindness. We read also of his great mercy. We see him as the Saviour and Redeemer of his people. 18. Q. Does the history of Israel give us a perfect picture of the character of God? A. In the history of Israel in the Old Testament we really do see God, but the picture is made complete only in Christ who is the perfect image of the invisible God 19.Q. How does Christ show us the holy love of God? A. Christ fulfils, but does not put an end to the mission of Israel. He bore the judgement on our sins in his own body, so offering us forgiveness. In the cross of Jesus we see the holy judgement of God on our sin, in that he does not merely pass over our sin as if it were nothing but bears it in his own body on the cross. God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners Christ died for us. REFERENCES 11.-14. John 1:1-18, 5:18, 8:58,10:30, 17:5,24; Deut. 6:4; 4:35,39; Is. 43:10; Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14; Col. 1:5,17,19, 2:19; Heb. 1:1-3; 2 Cor. 4:4; John 12:45; 14:8-11; Mark 3:11; Luke 4:34; Mark 5:7; Heb. 9:14; Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 2:11; Acts 5:3-4; Matt. 1:23; 3:17. 15. 1 John 4:10; John 3:16; 15.63:7; Deut. 7:7-8; 10:15; Eph. 2:1,4,5; Rom. 5:8; Hos. 11:8; Ps. 89:31-33; Rom. 8:38-39; Is. 54:7-8; Rev. 3:19; Heb. 12:6; 1 John 4:9-10; Rom. 5:8; Hos. 11:9. 16. Ex. 34:6-7; Ps. 145:17; Ps. 111:3; Is. 51:6,8; 15. 40:1-2; 2 Cor. 5:10; Ps. 7:8; 1 Pet. 2:23; Ps. 116:5; Deut. 4:31; 2 Cor. 1:3; Dan. 9:18; Ps. 119:58, 132; Is. 54:10; Ps. 145:8-9. 17. Jeremiah 15, 30, 31 (full chapters); Hos. 11:1-9. 18. Heb. 11:13-20; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3; Col. 1:19; 2:9; 2 Cor. 4:4; John 14:8-15; Matt. 13:16-17. 19. John 12:41; 15.40:11; Zech. 9:9; Ps. 110:4; John 8:56; Matt. 5:17; John 5:46; Matt.2:45; Is. 53:1-12; 2 Cor. 5:21; Acts 28:20, 23-30; John 12:31-33; Rom. 5:8.
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